


Facing Her Fear

by xswestallen



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Childhood Fear, Fluff, Scary Movies, don't worry the fic isn't scary, horror movie, the ring - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-07 23:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12242463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xswestallen/pseuds/xswestallen
Summary: Iris is terrified after seeing The Ring as a child and Barry convinces her to watch it again as an adult.





	Facing Her Fear

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired by my own terror after sneaking behind by parents’ backs to see The Ring as a kid. I haven’t been brave enough to rewatch the whole thing but I’ve seen lots of parodies and realized how stupid the movie seems in 2017. Sorry about the length. I just get carried away because I love writing about westallen so much.

Joe didn’t let Iris watch a lot of TV, she had a one hour a day limit on schooldays that only got upgraded to two hours a day on weekends. Joe also monitored what she watched to make sure it was ‘appropriate’. But Iris was a smart little latchkey kid, it only took a few weeks for her to crack the parental control code on the TV. Whenever she’d get home from school she would flip through the channels and watch whatever she wanted till Joe got home from work. **  
**

One day when Iris was flipping through the channels she saw a movie that got her attention. It was called, The Ring and it’s rated R. Iris initially thought it would be about an actual ring that was given as a gift and was rated R for the kissing scenes, but she soon realized how wrong she was. The Ring is a horror movie about a cursed videotape that causes a creepy girl to crawl out of a well and murder you.

Iris was terrified by what she saw and felt tempted to change the channel, but morbid fascination kept her watching. She assumed that if the good guys won in the end and stopped the evil girl it wouldn’t be as scary anymore. Iris was wrong. Seeing that girl come out of the well and then slowly escape from the TV to murder another character at the end was traumatizing.

Iris had nightmares about the movie for weeks. She finally had to break down and admit to her dad that she watched an R rated movie while he was at work. Joe punished her by cutting off cable. After what Iris had seen, she wasn’t even upset.

* * *

 

Iris was able to move on with her life and stopped living in constant fear of getting a ‘seven day’ phone call or being killed by a girl who emerged from the TV. But, she would have the occasional nightmare about it. When she was 17 she woke up sweating after having a particularly vivid dream about The Ring. She went down to the kitchen for some water and calm down.

“Iris?”

The voice made her jump. She realized it was just Barry and took a dee breath.

“Don’t scare me like that.” When she got over the surprise she walked over to the table and sat across from him. “What are you doing up?”

He lifted up the book in his hands to show off the cover. It was a biography of Harrison Wells, Barry’s idol. Iris rolled her eyes knowing this wasn’t the first time he’s read this biography. “Staying up all night to read is nerdy. But staying up all night to re-read a nonfiction book about a scientist? That’s a whole new level of nerd!”

“Why are you up? And why are you jumpy?” he retaliated and went back to looking at his book.

“I… just had a bad dream.” she didn’t want to sound like a coward who’s still scared of monsters in movies.

“The girl from The Ring again?” he said without looking up. Iris was shocked.

“How do you know about that?”

“I’ve seen it too, I know what happens. I remember how you used to get nervous when the phone would ring. And I know that to this day you suddenly get nervous whenever the TV goes static. I put two and two together.”

Iris felt a little embarrassed but Barry reached his hand across the table to hold hers. She immediately felt reassured. “It’s not a big deal, lots of people have lifelong fears after watching scary movies when they’re way too young.”

“Do you?” she asked.

“No, I didn’t watch an R rated movie till I was 15.”

“Such a good boy, Barry.”

* * *

 

Iris and Barry are adults now and were cozying up on their couch to watch Netflix. Barry was browsing while Iris ate popcorn. He couldn’t find anything interesting to watch and was just about to suggest they just go to bed early when he saw it. The Ring. Iris hadn’t had a nightmare in years and the image of that creepy girl breaking through the TV static was buried deep in her subconscious mind.

“Hey, how about this movie?” Barry scrolled over The Ring and he saw Iris’s eyes widen.

“No way.” This was the first time she thought about the film in years. She was finally free of it and didn’t want to start thinking about creepy, well, static girl again.

“Come on,” Barry teased “It’s been 20 years! If you watch it again you’ll realize it’s not nearly as scary as you remember.”

Barry kind of had a point and Iris was a lot braver now than she was as a child. If she could fight metahumans and travel to different parts of the mutliverse, she could handle a movie.

“Ok, put it on.”

When the movie started Iris was tense. She had her arms around Barry and would squeeze him whenever she realized a scary part was coming. But as the film progressed, she saw that Barry was right after all. It wasn’t half as bad as Iris remembered. When the final scene of the girl emerging from the well and then coming through the TV to kill played, Iris felt embarrassed.

“Wow, I can’t believe this used to scare me.” she said looking to Barry who let out a little laugh. The credits rolled and Iris stood up. “Well I feel a lot better knowing I’ll never have another nightmare about that stupid movie.”

“I’m glad.” Barry got up too and they both headed to bed.

“It doesn’t even make sense anymore. I mean, who has a house phone? Who would answer a call from a random number? Who has VHS player to watch the cursed tape? Why would making a copy of the tape save you? What if you posted it on YouTube and millions of people watched it? Would it save you but kill millions?” Iris laughed at how dated the film is.

After getting into bed, Barry kissed Iris on the top of the head and they went to sleep. Iris was sleeping fine but woke up in the middle of the night after feeling Barry poking her back.

“Iris?” he asked “Are you asleep?”

“I was.” she rolled over to face him, a little annoyed. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I’m fine. I just wanted to make sure you were ok. You know, no more nightmares since you faced your childhood fear.”

“I’m fine. Go back to sleep.” She closed her eyes and felt Barry spooning her.

“Can we just cuddle?”

Iris raised an eyebrow and grinned. Barry knew what she was thinking and opened his mouth to deny it but was too late. Iris was already laughing.

“You’re scared aren’t you?”

“No……….maybe”

“I told you it was scary but for years you said I was exaggerating!”

“I was wrong, ok? Now hold me.” he was half joking, half serious.

“Don’t worry Flash, you saw how slow she crawled out of that TV. You’d make it to Keystone before she even got a finger out.” Iris played with his hair and tried not to laugh at the irony of the situation. “You have me here to protect you.” Barry smiled at that. “I’m not letting her or any other woman get to you.”


End file.
